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Maine Mass Shooting Investigation; Biden Administration Pushes Israel and Ukraine Aid on Capitol Hill; Massive Blast at Gaza Refugee Camp. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 31, 2023 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Boris Sanchez with Brianna Keilar in Washington and Wolf Blitzer live in Tel Aviv.

We begin with breaking developments in the Israel-Hamas war. We're learning about the first IDF casualties reported since Israel started its ground incursion into Gaza.

But, first, we're going to begin with this explosion, images showing the result of a major blast on one of the largest refugee camps in Gaza.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Reports are still coming in when it comes to casualties, but dozens are dead and injured. Those numbers are expected to rise. Many are still under rubble, according to the hospital director in Gaza who is treating victims.

The Ministry of Interior in the Hamas-controlled enclave reported that 20 homes were destroyed -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: It's a very, very powerful what's going on here right in the heart of Tel Aviv as well.

The Israel Defense Forces, by the way, have not yet immediately responded to CNN's questions about that explosion at the refugee camp in Gaza.

Meantime, just moments ago, right here in the heart of Tel Aviv, we witnessed Iron Dome intercepting rockets that are just coming over right near where we are in Tel Aviv.

Jeremy Diamond is standing by Ashkelon, Israel. Before that, I want to show our viewers the pictures. There you see them, Jeremy. We were standing here on the roof. All of a sudden, we heard the sirens going off. We saw the rockets coming in, and then we saw the Iron Dome interceptors going up and blowing up those rockets.

It's a very, very tense situation. It happens fairly regularly. And it underscores, Jeremy, what we all know, that Hamas still has capabilities, presumably, of firing these rockets, these missiles, from Gaza right into Tel Aviv, right towards the heart of Tel Aviv. Fortunately for the Israelis, they have this Iron Dome system that can go up there and destroy these rockets in the skies.

There are still problems, because once these rockets that are coming in are destroyed, the debris falls down, and you have to be really careful. You have to go into shelters, because the metal from those debris could harm you, even kill you, if they hit you where they're coming down to the ground. So it's just an awful situation that is still unfolding here in Tel Aviv.

But, Jeremy, I want to get your latest, what we're learning about this explosion at that major refugee camp in Gaza.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, this massive explosion that took place in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, leaving dozens dead and injured, according to the director of one hospital, he said that he had hundreds of people coming into his hospital dead and injured.

And if you look at the images of this explosion, it is just hard to kind of fathom the scale of this, multiple, very large craters appearing where normally you would have several buildings according to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, 20 homes were completely destroyed in what they are describing as an Israeli bombing that targeted a residential neighborhood in Jabalia.

Jabalia refugee camp is one of the largest refugee camps in Gaza. It houses the refugees of the 1948 war and its descendants, who then moved -- who were displaced and moved into that refugee camp in Jabalia. These enormous explosions, Wolf, are not the first that we have seen in Gaza.

And, of course, we know that, as this war has stretched on, the toll of casualties in Gaza has skyrocketed. More than 8,000 people have been killed inside the Gaza Strip in these three weeks of war. And, of course, we know that civilians have been too often the results of those casualties, more than 3,000 children killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

And, of course, we are still waiting to see how many people may be under the rubble in this explosion. But if you just look at those images, Wolf, it is just really hard to fathom what that explosion would have been like for the people on the ground.

BLITZER: Yes, it's very, very serious, indeed.

Jeremy, I want to turn to the deaths now reported by the IDF of two Israeli soldiers in Gaza. These are the first reported soldier deaths since the Israeli ground incursion began. Tell us what you're learning.

DIAMOND: Yes, that's correct, Wolf, the IDF confirming that two of its soldiers have died in this initial expanded ground operation, which is now in its fifth day.

[13:05:00]

And these are the first confirmed deaths that we have heard from the IDF since this began. Now, this comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been vowing that this is a time for war. He says that there is a time for peace and a time for war, but this is a time for war. And he has rejected calls from some -- from a number of countries for a cease-fire, saying that a cease-fire would only play into Hamas' hands.

Now, of course, the Israeli public is very sensitive to casualties of its forces. And so it will be a factor for the Israeli prime minister to consider as he continues to carry out this ground offensive inside of Gaza whether those casualties on the Israeli side continue to mount.

What has been clear, Wolf, from observing the movement of Israeli troops on the ground, is that they are proceeding quite cautiously in order to try and minimize the number of Israeli troop casualties as they move forward. They have been making heavy use of close air support, whereas, in previous operations, infantry troops on the ground would have perhaps engaged directly with Hamas forces that they see in certain structures.

Instead, what they're doing now is, they're really making a strong use of calling in that close air support, calling in Apache gunships, which we have seen flying over the Gaza Strip, to carry out strikes on identified positions of Hamas militants. And they have also been working to try and take out some of these reinforced positions of Hamas fighters on the outstrips of Gaza City.

And it's clear, Wolf, that they are moving in from a number of directions, from the north, as well as from the south, as they head towards Gaza City, one of Hamas' strongholds -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm just curious, Jeremy, while I have you, we -- just a few moments ago, we did see these rockets coming in, presumably from Gaza, the Iron Dome intercepting them, blowing them up in the sky right in the heart -- right out of the sky over the heart of Tel Aviv, where I am right now.

You're further south in Ashkelon, closer to Gaza. Are you still seeing rockets and missiles coming in from Gaza, where you are?

DIAMOND: Yes, there have been rockets in this area, Wolf.

And the next town over, in Ashdod, which is just to the north here in Ashkelon, they actually had some direct hits today. Several people were injured in that strike. When we were in Sderot earlier today, we also had rockets fired over.

Of course, what we are seeing in Gaza right now in terms of the numbers of casualties from Israeli bombing and airstrikes, as well as other explosions, we have seen instances, of course, where Hamas has been firing rockets from residential areas, and those have misfired. According to the Israel Defense Forces, some of those have caused casualties inside of Gaza as well.

But what is clear, Wolf, is that, right now, the toll of casualties inside of Gaza is continuing to mount in a way that really eclipses anything else that we have seen in any past conflicts between Israel and Hamas, and, of course, Israel making clear that it will continue to carry out this offensive inside of Gaza until it can eradicate Hamas and remove it from power inside the Gaza Strip.

BLITZER: Yes, this war is clearly intensifying right

now. Jeremy, stay safe over there. Thank you very much. We will get back to you soon.

Back in Washington, by the way, impassioned calls for a cease-fire as U.S. senators weigh more military funding for Israel. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHANTING)

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BLITZER: Demonstrators repeatedly disrupted today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington, resulting in dozens of arrests.

Top U.S. officials, including the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, implored Congress to approve emergency military aid for both Israel and Ukraine.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is over at the Pentagon for us.

Natasha, what more did the secretaries, Blinken and Austin, have to say?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Wolf, they were making the case that this supplemental funding for Israel and Ukraine, it cannot be delinked. They have to be passed together, because the Ukraine funding that has proven so controversial within the House of Representatives, particularly among House Republicans, that cannot be kicked down the road. The

U.S. is running very low on this funding for the Ukrainians. And everything in the region and everything with regard to these two conflicts, according to Blinken and Austin, they are connected, and they simply cannot be divorced from each other when the administration, when Congress is considering the kind of money, equipment, humanitarian aid to provide to both nations as they fight off the respective threats, of course, Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Hamas.

Here is how Secretary of State Antony Blinken described how all of these threats are interconnected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have clear links, as both the chair and vice chair have noted. Since we cut off Russia's traditional means of supplying its military,

it's turned more and more to Iran for assistance. In return, Moscow has supplied Iran with increasingly advanced military technology, which poses a threat to Israel's security.

[13:10:04]

Allowing Russia to prevail, with Iran's support, will simply embolden both Moscow and Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So the comments from Blinken and Austin really underscoring that this is all one fight, and the administration and Congress and the U.S., they need to treat it as such.

Now, this is important because the House GOP introduced legislation yesterday that would only provide additional funding of $14 billion for Israel, something that the administration, as well as some senators, have said is a nonstarter; you can't just kick Ukraine funding down the road.

But, additionally, a through line of this hearing, Wolf, has been the need to protect civilians inside Gaza. That is something that Blinken and Austin said repeatedly they have emphasized with their counterparts in Israel, that, as they conduct this ground offensive, they need to still try to get aid into Gaza and they need to do everything they can to protect civilians, Wolf.

BLITZER: Natasha Bertrand in Washington for us, thanks for that update.

Meanwhile, the commissioner for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, that's the agency that helps Palestinian refugees, says, in the last three weeks alone, he has lost 64 colleagues in the Gaza conflict.

Listen.

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PHILIPPE LAZZARINI, COMMISSIONER-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES IN THE NEAR EAST: Samir, head of secretary and safety in the Middle Region, was killed with his wife and eight children.

This is the highest number of U.N. aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Juliette Touma is the communications director for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Juliette, thanks so much for joining us. I want to ask you first about the breaking news we're following

regarding this massive explosive -- explosion at the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. I assume you have heard...

JULIETTE TOUMA, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY: Yes.

BLITZER: ... if any of your people have been impacted by it.

TOUMA: Yes, thanks. Thanks for having me, Wolf.

Look, we are getting exactly the same reports as you are. I was just on the phone with our teams who are down south in the Gaza Strip. And they will follow and get us more information. So I don't have much more to say.

However, what I can confirm is since last night, when UNRWA briefed the U.N. Security Council, sadly, the number of staff killed has now increased to 67, 67 UNRWA colleagues.

BLITZER: Sixty-seven UNRWA workers who are there in Gaza, they have been killed in these operations; is that what you're saying? Just want to be precise.

TOUMA: No, exactly.

So, since the 7th of October, when the war began, 67 UNRWA colleagues have been killed in different circumstances, including some that we were able to confirm today. One of them last night was killed with his eight children and his wife while he was at home. His name was Samir.

BLITZER: If you don't mind, tell us a little bit more about some of the people your organization has now lost, that UNRWA has now lost, what they did. And I assume they will all be severely missed.

TOUMA: Very much so. Very much so.

UNRWA will not be the same without those colleagues. These are mainly teachers and school principals. There were a couple of doctors. There was a psychologist. There were people who were in charge of staff safety, support staff, a few support staff.

They are the backbone really of our humanitarian operation. There was one engineer. We have 13,000 people working with UNRWA. We are the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza. We have been there since the early 1950s, but this, we have never, ever seen before.

BLITZER: So heartbreaking to see these families destroyed like that.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as you know, Juliette, refused to call for a cease-fire, strongly opposes a cease-fire, despite a significant majority of U.N. nations supporting that resolution for what's called a sustained humanitarian truce.

How's your group going to respond to all of this? Are you pursuing other ways to try to convince Israel to at least pause the airstrikes? TOUMA: Well, the United Nations has called many, many times since

early on for a cessation of facilities, for a cease-fire.

Humanitarian cease-fire, which we called for last night at the U.N. Security Council, has got to happen. We are actually way too late. Too many -- too many civilians everywhere continue to lose their lives totally unnecessarily. There's so much destruction, so much grief, so much sadness, so much loss, many mothers, many fathers, pregnant women, older people.

I mean, the pain is just immense. And that has got to stop.

[13:15:03]

BLITZER: Certainly is.

Juliette Touma, the UNRWA communications director, thank you so much for joining us.

Good luck to you. Good luck to all your people in Gaza right now. We know they're doing important work.

In the midst of Israel's war with Hamas, top U.S. officials now warning of a spike in domestic threats. What they're saying about those threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab American communities, we have new information.

Plus, how the Maine mass shooter's ex-wife and son alerted police months ago. What they told authorities back in May and what we're learning about how he acquired up to 15 guns.

Stay with us. Much more coming up.

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SANCHEZ: Law enforcement in Maine is now under intense scrutiny after officials were apparently alerted to the Lewiston mass shooter's concerning behavior and comments in the months before last week's massacre.

CNN has learned the 40-year-old's ex-wife and son went to police more than five months ago to report what they described as paranoid behavior. They also said he took between 10 and 15 guns and rifles from his brother's house.

[13:20:11]

Now, this is according to documents released by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office.

Leroy Walker, whose son was one of the 18 people killed in Wednesday's rampage, expressed his frustration that there were missed warning signs. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LEROY WALKER SR., FATHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I think we have seen enough facts to know that they totally missed what this man was capable of doing. They should have removed this man's guns immediately.

This man went rampant on people saying that he was going to do this, and we still let him run around two or three months later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now, CNN chief law enforcement analyst John Miller.

John, thanks for being with us.

So, in May, his family warns authorities about his behavior. In July, he spends a couple of weeks at a mental health facility. And then, in September, officials try to conduct a welfare check on him. There weren't only signs that something was coming. There were missed opportunities to stop him.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, Boris, when you look at that arc over five months, and then you compare it to at least the studies that we know about that say, what are the pre-attack behavioral signs of an active shooter, you really have to ask, how did all this go wrong?

Now, let's take a look at some of those pre-attack behaviors. According to an FBI study that looked at pre-attack behaviors by active shooters, mental health issues. He obviously had a mental health crisis that occurred in July, when they had him hospitalized for two weeks.

Interpersonal reactions, that is the fighting that went on between him, Card, and two of his soldier colleagues talking about hearing voices, being accused of being a pedophile. Leakage. Leakage is when you're hinting at violence. He was actually talking out loud about shooting up a Army National Guard base.

Threats, confrontations, angers, the firearm behavior, gathering up 15 weapons, and then going to gun stores and buying more weapons, and then trying to purchase a silencer from another local store in Maine. When you look at all of those signs and then you say, OK, if you go by the offender characteristics, he ticks the boxes.

But then you look at the things that he was saying and the things that law enforcement were being told by others -- and I think we can go to some of those comments, where he had been reported for gathering up those weapons. He had the angry rants. He answered the door with a gun when relatives came to see him. He was also making threats to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco.

That means that it wasn't just signs he was showing that they could have picked up on, but people, family members, members of the military, colleagues were warning them of those signs. So, then they engaged. They tried to find him. They tried to talk to him. They couldn't locate him. But they had family members talking to him.

They had the Army Reserve colleagues talking to him. But then what's the next phase? And, again, if you go back to the FBI reports on, what are the final things that happen before an active shooter, you get to the stressors. And if you look at his life and those stressors, there was the mental health intervention that came up.

There was the breakup of his marriage, which is a common stressor, relationship. There was the fact that he got fired from his job at the recycling center, the fact that he was having conflicts and paranoid delusions about friends that were causing people to shun him. And then, of course, the shooting happened.

So, Boris, where were the signs not?

SANCHEZ: Right.

So, obviously, there's an investigation now reviewing what could have been done to prevent this. I'm wondering where you think they might find shortcomings. And, separately, what does an internal review like that look like?

MILLER: Well, I think the sheriff's office took the bull by the horns and they released all the documents yesterday, and they said, here's everything we had.

So, from the standpoint of transparency, the Androscoggin sheriff's office, Sheriff Merry, they have been very up front about this. It's the governor and the state that has been a little more cautious.

So, until we hear the governor of Maine say, I'm appointing an inspector general, an independent investigator, someone who wasn't involved in this to review it -- because the important lesson here isn't to take people to task for what they could have done, but to figure out, how do we not have this happen again by changing those procedures or tightening them?

[13:25:06]

SANCHEZ: Yes.

John Miller, thanks so much for the perspective. Appreciate it -- Brianna.

KEILAR: A tangible step in the healing process for Texas community also traumatized by a mass shooting. Ground has just been broken on a new elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the new building replacing Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were killed in May of last year.

No name has been chosen for the new school, but its design includes a tree, with each branch representing one of the victims. It is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025.

And next: Israel says that it hit hundreds of Hamas targets overnight as it expands its ground operations in Gaza. We will speak with a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces on what's next in the war.

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